


Saturday Night’s Alright

by gayshitiguess



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Bar Fight, F/F, I feel like they need a night off, M/M, good old crazy fight scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:53:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22362136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayshitiguess/pseuds/gayshitiguess
Summary: Peter Nureyev did not frequent bars like the one he was in. His kind of bar was softly lit, shining on every surface, with quiet piano music playing in the background. The bartenders in his kind of bar were sharply dressed people with the posture of a ballerina, quietly calling him ‘sir’ as they filled his drink and he tipped them much higher than one should with pockets as shallow as his. In his kind of bar, he was playing a part, a man with more, a man with privilege, who could hand over a thousand creeds without his lungs burning with anxiety. A man who wore nothing more than an easy smile and an air of laissez-faire.This was not his kind of bar.
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko/Vespa, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, Rita & Jet Sikuliaq
Comments: 10
Kudos: 107





	Saturday Night’s Alright

**Author's Note:**

> Heeeeyyyyyyy ive been on a penumbra kick since the new season came out and I’m very excited to put out this short piece! It’s not my longest, but its just a bit of fun to get me back in the swing of writing! Feel free to let me know how you like it in the comments below!

Peter Nureyev did not frequent bars like the one he was in. His kind of bar was softly lit, shining on every surface, with quiet piano music playing in the background. The bartenders in his kind of bar were sharply dressed people with the posture of a ballerina, quietly calling him ‘sir’ as they filled his drink and he tipped them much higher than one should with pockets as shallow as his. In his kind of bar, he was playing a part, a man with more, a man with privilege, who could hand over a thousand creeds without his lungs burning with anxiety. A man who wore nothing more than an easy smile and an air of laissez-faire. 

This was not his kind of bar. 

Peter was sat at a table that is dented, chipped, and deeply saturated in alcohol and other fluids he didn’t want to think about. Synth-wood, he thought, as he looked down at it. He had always liked the feel of actual wood better than the fake stuff. He had a glass of gin in his hand that he hadn’t taken a sip of. He was watching the ice melt in it. The condensation was building on his glove. 

Jet was next to him, and Peter was very quietly pleased about that. Jet Siquliak had been his hero since he first started in their line of business, and the skepticism that had been thrown his way by his hero was alarming and disappointing for the first few weeks. After some time, however, and after seeing his work, Jet had seemed to develop a kind of professional respect for him. Certainly not the close, jovial relationship he had developed with Rita upon first meeting, but it was something, and it was, perhaps the safest type for them to share. 

Jet was sipping at a sparkling water, staring across the bar at the other two thirds of their group. Peter’s eyes followed his to the barstools that they filled up rather noisily. Jet seemed to have an aversion to drinking, but no other member of their crew did. Rita, Juno, Buddy, and Vespa were lined up at the bar as they had been for the past hour and a half. Besides Buddy, they were all visibly drunk, and Peter was glad to see Rita, despite her size, drinking Juno under the table. His eyes lingered on the Detective. After their little misadventure with the map, and the very long conversation that followed, he and Juno had begun to dance around a very tentative friendship. 

It had always been like that between the two of them, a dance. Sometimes it was a tango, pressed flush against each other, twisting and turning and ghosting hands against each other. Other times, they were miles apart, a gentle two step that was always in beat with each other, but too far away to touch. Now, it was something in between. A waltz with their hands clasped. Peter was leading, which only seemed fair, since Juno had been the one to step away from the dance last. There was room between them, their chests weren’t pressed together, their arms didn’t circle around each other’s waists, but they were there. They were touching and dancing, and that was a start. 

Juno was slumped over the bar, his head rested on his outstretched arm and turned in towards Rita. He was smiling broadly, his crooked teeth stacked atop each other as his eye wrinkled shut in a laugh. Peter had never known someone who could make Juno laugh like Rita could, and it was a talent that he envied. Rita was telling Juno some joke that he was sure that the poor man has heard a thousand times before, and her mouth was moving a million miles a second. Even though Peter had counted her drinks (three), she was more upright and aware than Juno was after his two. 

Vespa was hanging off of Buddy like her life depends on it, and as far as Peter had seen of the two, that might just have been the truth. She looked as run down and sickly as she ever did, but alcohol brought a blush to her cheeks where she was usually pale and slightly green. Buddy was in similar fashion to Rita, lazily sipping on her martini, and although Peter was sure that she had a Bloody Mary for breakfast, she looked utterly sober. Her lips were pressed to Vespa’s ear, whispering something that made that soft blush deepen. A wide, devilish grin spread across Vespa’s face as she turned to bite at Buddy’s jugular, and he chose that moment to look away. 

Juno was still leaning there, still smiling his crooked smile, and Peter’s eyes fell upon him like they had never left. 

“You are staring.” Jet said softly next to him. It drew his attention away from the lady at the bar, towards the statue of a man sitting next to him. 

“So are you,” he shot the accusation back. 

“I am making sure that Buddy doesn’t drink more than three cocktails tonight, as per her request.” Jet parried his blow. 

“And I’m making sure that Juno doesn’t start a bar fight.” Counter strike. Jet didn’t take the bait, even as Peter’s posture shoots more and more blows at him. He was, as ever, calm where Peter is manic and prone to violence. He was everything that Peter thought he might be one day, once he could work through the shake in his bones and settle. Jet was a sleek weapon, made for something much more civilised than Peter was. A double edged sword to Peter’s blunt dagger. 

“You spend much of your time looking at Juno,” Jet observed. Peter grinned viciously. 

“And could that be wrong when he’s just so nice to look at?” He was deflecting again, acting like someone he was not. He was acting like the type of man who made callous comments about drunk ladies at dingy bars. That was not the type of man he was.

“You are in love.” Jet said it like a fact, like he could read it off of his face. 

“Love is a bunch of chemicals in my brain,” Peter said, dropping most of his pretenses. It was no use to pretend around Jet. He was so wired to the truth that any attempt to hide was pointless. “It has no control over me.” 

“Love isn’t in your brain.” Jet responded. “It is in your heart. It is a guiding hand, sometimes forceful, sometimes gentle. But it does control us. If you are not prepared to admit that, then you are not prepared to experience it.” Peter scowled. 

“I thought you weren’t the kind for romance.” He bit back.

“There are many types of love, Theif.” 

Peter sighed and crossed his arms, staring back at his full gin. The ice had melted. 

There was a shout from the bar and he looked up to see Vespa on her feet, outrage spread across her features. The blush that Buddy had given her was spread into a smear of rage, splotchy across her cheeks. Buddy was standing too, her arm hooked around Vespa’s waist. Her visible eye was locked on a large man that Vespa was clawing for. Juno beat them both to the punch, literally. He had to jump to land it against the man’s jaw, but he made it, a sick crunch ringing out as his knuckles clocked him in the jaw. He kicked at the man’s knee, sending him to the ground. 

“You don’t just grab a lady, asshole!” He yelled, landing another kick to the man’s chest. “Especially not one as dangerous as her.” Buddy was standing stock still, and her face was covered in indignity. 

It took two solid seconds for chaos to erupt entirely from his crew. As soon as Juno had shut his mouth, a woman was colliding with him, bringing him to the ground easily. Vespa dragged her back from Juno and started wailing on her without mercy. Rita had climbed up on the bar, grabbing alcohol by the bottle and stuffing bar rags into the tops. Buddy calmly sat beside her, saving her cocktail from the chaos and holding up her lighter to Rita. 

Peter stood, buttoning his suit jacket as Jet rose beside him. 

“They’ve caused a fight.” He sighed, as though he had expected this all along. 

“It must be Saturday.” Peter replied smoothly. He pulled off his gloves and snagged the shoulder of an individual that was going in for Vespa and dragged them back, locking his arm around their throat and lowering them to the ground as they tried to squirm out of his vice grip. Once they had gone still. He went in for the knees of a man trying to size himself up to Jet and not succeeding. As he went down, Peter turned and slid a knife from his sleeve. It shot into the shoulder of a woman gunning, literally gunning, and he didn’t think that it was set to stunt or Juno. She went down and Juno caught his gaze for only a moment, a pause in the dance to catch their breath. 

They went on like that for several minutes more. It couldn’t have been more than five of them, but he found that fights often felt much longer than they actually were. By the time that they were escorted out of the building, his knuckles were skinned and bleeding and his head was comfortably buzzing from the hit that he took to his temple. He was laughing as the four of them (himself, Juno, Rita, and Vespa), were hurled outside by the bartender. Buddy and Jet followed behind calmly, Jet too big for anybody to throw out of anywhere, and Buddy still carrying her martini. She stepped over Juno, strewn over the dusty ground and bent to offer her hand to Vespa, who stood jerkily and wrapped a possessive arm around her hips. 

“Well,” Buddy smiled, “thank you all for defending my honor.” She pressed a soft kiss to Vespa’s cheek. Peter dragged himself off the ground and brushed off his suit. There was a tear at the knee, but that was hardly his greatest concern. He went to help up first Rita and then Juno, noticing the rip across the shoulder of Juno’s coat. 

“That’s what, the tenth tear in this thing?” He brushed down the fabric and laughed softly. “ _ Now  _ will you let me get you a new one?” 

“You’re crazy, this is totally salvageable.” Juno shrugged and brushed away Peter’s worrying hands. 

“Right,” Vespa grumbled, “back to the ship. Everybody needs disinfectant, we don’t know where that bar’s been.” 

The group of them hobbled along, drunk and beaten and falling over themselves as Rita passed around a bottle of vodka that had never realized its fate as a Molotov cocktail. Peter took one swig, let the burn of it run down his chest, as he passed it to Juno. The lady’s hand lingered on his for a long moment. 

The crew of the  _ Carte Blanche  _ won this fight, and hopefully they would the next one. In case they didn’t, Peter kept drinking and he tangled his fingers with Juno’s as they walked. Just in case. 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can find me on tumblr at gayshitiguess.


End file.
